The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, was the protagonist of a video that was seen by millions of Internet users around the world, without her knowing it. She appeared completely naked, trying to have sexual relations with several men, along with obscene writings. Her face was hers, but her body was not: the video had been modified to paste her face to the bodies of some adult film actresses with a graphics program. It would have been done by a 40-year-old Sardinian man who, together with the complicity of his 73-year-old father, placed it on a pornographic page in the United States in 2020, when the leader of the Brothers of Italy was still in the opposition. The videos remained online for several months.
The far-right politician, upon learning that she was being used in this way thanks to some of her collaborators, reported it to the police. Therefore, after the defamation judicial process was opened in October, he has now just learned of an appointment on July 2. The president is called to testify before the Sassari court, in Sardinia, because Judge Monia Adami has accepted the defense’s request for her to appear, although initially the premier’s lawyer had requested that she not have to testify.
Meloni is clear that he wants to go to the end: he has requested compensation of 100,000 euros for damages, a symbolic sum that is intended to send a clear message against this type of illegal activities. “The petition wants to bring the message to all women who are victims of this type of abuse that they should not be afraid to report it,” explained the legal representative of the prime minister, Maria Giulia Marongiu. The figure is symbolic and wants to contribute to the protection of the victims, women who, on many occasions unconsciously, are the target of this type of crime.” According to what has been reported, the compensation will be allocated to the Italian Ministry of the Interior fund for women who are victims of violence.
Italian police began investigating the matter in 2020, after Meloni’s complaint, when she was still the leader of a small opposition party. After tracking the data of the videos, first through the name that the men used on the website and then through the telephone line from which the images were disseminated, they managed to find the alleged authors of the falsification. The Prosecutor’s Office, which traced her home in Sassari, came to the conclusion that the son used specific software to modify existing pornographic films. The father would only be involved by having used his line to distribute them, so he has asked the court to close the case in exchange for doing community work, something that the court will decide next week.
The news that Meloni will testify at the trial has emerged just after Palazzo Chigi, the headquarters of the Italian Executive, acknowledged that in recent days its Instagram account has suffered an internet attack that has put national security at risk. For a few seconds, cryptocurrencies were advertised on her profile along with a photo of Elon Musk, but everything ended in a scare when the intrusion was neutralized.
The prime minister has also been a protagonist these days in Italy for her gestures during an appearance before the Chamber of Deputies prior to this week’s European Council. First, due to the criticism received from the opposition when she referred to the deputies as “guys” while she spoke about foreign policy and the war in Ukraine, instead of the usual “honors.” “Okay, honorable guys. Isn’t that even worth it? It’s obvious that you don’t like me.” And then, because of her graphic expressions during the debate, when the leader of the Alliance of the Greens and the Left Angelo Bonelli asked her not to give him a “disturbing look.” First, Meloni was surprised: “Me, a disturbing look?” She then joked by covering her head with her jacket, an image that ended up on the cover of The Wall Street Journal. “I don’t know what he meant to say with his disturbing look, but I apologize to the colleague and to all the others who may have felt intimidated,” she responded on her social networks.
